


Innermost Depths

by bomberqueen17



Series: Meet Death Sitting [4]
Category: Wiedźmin | The Witcher - All Media Types
Genre: (it works out ok), (just a mention of that actually), Banter, Dubious Consent, F/M, Pegging, Power Dynamics, Strap-Ons, academic spite, and end notes for specific tws, gross dead animal nonsense, mind-reading, please check beginning note for additional warnings, transactional sex
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-02-22
Updated: 2020-02-22
Packaged: 2021-02-28 08:14:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 12,400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22847020
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/bomberqueen17/pseuds/bomberqueen17
Summary: Yennefer pouted, and he could tell it was an act. “You’re no kind of fun,” she said.He sighed deeply, rolling his head on his neck to stretch the tension out of his shoulders. There was no point being afraid. There was nothing he could do to make her less dangerous. She wasn’t going to go away and let him sleep-- or if she did, she’d be back at any time she felt like.So he might as well uphold his own reputation. Meet death sitting down, offer it wine, have a pleasant conversation. That sort of thing.“Darling,” he said, “I amall kindsof fun.”
Relationships: Jaskier | Dandelion/Yennefer z Vengerbergu | Yennefer of Vengerberg
Series: Meet Death Sitting [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1639717
Comments: 106
Kudos: 1064





	Innermost Depths

**Author's Note:**

> ***WARNING: CSA MENTION***  
> There's no warning for noncon in this story because it's not intended to be, really, in the end, but it's also not exactly sweet, and it's arguable that the consent is pretty conditional. So, exercise some caution there.  
> Also, gross dead animal nonsense is [this excerpt](https://bomberqueen17.tumblr.com/post/190910801234/another-wip-excerpt) I posted on Tumblr a while back, please go look at the hilarious cartoon.
> 
> *** HOWEVER, there IS a mention of IMPLIED CHILDHOOD SEXUAL ABUSE so PLEASE be careful if this is something that you have trouble with. It is indirect and not detailed but it is alluded to very clearly. READ END NOTE FIRST [link should be below, you can skip directly there] for details if you're not sure you want to encounter it and want to know what to expect first. ***

_Hey while we're talking about triggers, I'm a hurt/comfort writer by deepest inclination, and to get the sweet sweet catharsis of the comfort part you gotta go through the hurt part. I will do my damnedest to tag where applicable but sometimes it turns out something I never thought about is somebody's trigger, and I tend to write really realistic shit, so. I apologize in advance if there's something I missed. If you're not sure, ask me first. I love you guys and want you to be okay, this is meant to be harmless escapism and catharsis, sweet catharsis, but I also can't anticipate everything. All I can do is my best._  
_I'm on[Tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/bomberqueen17) and [Dreamwidth](https://dragonlady7.dreamwidth.org/), and I'm not always available to talk right away, but I am around._  
_And really, read that end note first if you're worried about the CSA mention, I give you specifics and when to prepare for it._

___

Yawning, Jaskier put the collection of books and papers into the drawer, closed and locked it, and, rubbing his face, shuffled out of the room and down the hall to wash his face and go to bed. He was still limping, a little, from the arrow wound, and it pained him more after a long day like this one. Ruefully, he wondered whether he were destined to be one of those old men who limped all the time, from here on out. Geralt had told him it was all damage to the muscle and that took forever to heal but would, with proper care and rest. Well, Jaskier was trying his best, but it was hard to rest around here. Oxenfurt University had a sudden influx of students and needed teachers for them, and Jaskier was thrown headfirst into a full course load, far above the easy routine of lessons and occasional lectures he usually provided. The revisions on the poems and notes he’d collected on his last round of travels had to be slotted in during late nights like this, when he wasn’t pulling quotes for lectures or grading stupid analytical essays.

He leaned heavily on the wall as he got his bedroom door open, and carefully closed it behind him before using the little taper he’d lit at the hall lamp to light the lamp near the doorway. It was tricky, and he had to trim the wick one-handed to get it to light neatly. He blew out the taper and turned around and leapt about six feet in the air:

Geralt was standing there, looming, hair falling damply in his face like he’d just had a bath. “Holy fuck,” Jaskier said, “you scared the fucking--”

“Mm,” Geralt said, and stepped forward. “Jaskier.” He took Jaskier’s jaw in one hand, slid the other hand around his waist, pressed him back against the door, and kissed him. 

“What,” Jaskier tried, but Geralt gave him no room to speak, pushing in determinedly. His mouth tasted of birch twigs, his hair smelled of soap and woodsmoke and someone’s familiar perfume, and his body was so familiar, warm and strong and determined. He kissed Jaskier deeply and thoroughly, until Jaskier was entirely melted and boneless in his hands. 

“What,” Jaskier tried again, as Geralt let him come up for air, and Geralt kissed him again, then, keeping him from speaking. 

By now Jaskier was breathless, hard, aching, entirely melted, and confused as fuck. He put his hands on Geralt’s chest and pushed him back and said “What the fuck are you doing here?”

“I had to see you,” Geralt said, intense and staring. “Jaskier. I had to see you.”

“You know what I look like,” Jaskier said. His heart was like to burst through his ribcage and his cock was about ready to split his pants, but he was just barely able to keep a handle on his mind. “Where’s Ciri? How are you keeping her safe, here?”

“She’s safe,” Geralt said, which wasn’t an answer. And it wasn’t un-Geralt-like, but it still didn’t satisfy. 

“That’s insane,” Jaskier said. “You said we’d meet up _sometime_ , not literally a month after we split up, what the actual fuck are you doing here?”

Geralt kissed him again, hands on his ass, holding him firmly in place, and it was hot, it was so fucking hot, Jaskier wanted Geralt to just take him hard up against the wall, fast and desperate and-- 

“You can’t keep kissing me instead of answering me,” Jaskier gasped, panting for breath. Geralt bit his neck, hard, down by the shoulder, and he gasped and writhed, turned on beyond belief. “Ah fuck, _Geralt_ \--”

Geralt picked him up by the thighs and carried him in to the bed, throwing him down on it and climbing atop him. Jaskier’s dick thought this was a great idea, but his last shreds of rational thought pushed him up onto his elbow to look around the room. There was no sign of any luggage, of any cloak or armor; there wasn’t even a pair of boots. Geralt was barefoot, fresh from a bath, wearing unfamiliar clothes, and had apparently teleported here for no reason.

_teleported here_

“Wait a minute,” Jaskier said, and Geralt ignored him, biting his neck again, crowding in close, settling between Jaskier’s legs-- he felt right, he felt good, but Jaskier had heard too many stories. He scrabbled at the bedside table and groped around until he found a handful of loose change, and felt until he identified a silver coin. He grabbed it up and pressed it against Geralt’s cheek. 

Geralt paused, then, for the first time, and looked at him. “What are you doing?”

At least he wasn’t screaming and smoking, Jaskier thought faintly. “Silver test,” Jaskier said, and took advantage of the pause to scramble out from under him a little, to sit up against the headboard. “Geralt. What are you doing here? Where are your shoes? Where is your _daughter_?”

Geralt’s eyebrows drew together. “Do you not want to see me?”

“This isn’t you,” Jaskier said. “Something’s wrong. You’re not going to abandon your daughter and come for a weeks-long ride just to see me, just because we never did get to fuck the way we both wanted to.”

Geralt sat back a little on his heels. His shirt was half-open, his hair loose and wildly disarranged, and his erection tented his trousers magnificently, and worst was the expression on his face, which was soft and baffled. “I haven’t abandoned anyone,” he said. “I just couldn’t wait any longer to see you.”

“See,” Jaskier said, “that’s very poetic of you, but you keep telling me, you never studied any poetry, and you pass a silver test but there’s no fucking way you’re really here just to see me and there’s not something else horrible going on.” 

Geralt sat back a little further and sighed, and it was _so_ familiar, a weary almost eye-roll, a deep settling weariness to the set of his shoulders. “There’s… the usual level of disaster, but I had thought seeing you would be perhaps a pleasant diversion before we had to dive into it.”

“Give me the bad news first,” Jaskier said. “Come on, you know me.”

“I do,” Geralt said, “which is why I figured I’d fuck you into compliance first and then once I’d buttered you up, I’d spill the bad news.”

“That has literally never worked on me,” Jaskier said. “You know I’m always compliant, orgasms don’t help. They just make me useless. If you want any sense out of me you’ve got to tell me before the lust part gets involved. Now get off me and tell me what the fuck is going on.”

“Gods damn it, I was _so_ sure that would work,” Geralt said, sounding rather petulantly unlike himself, and as he sat back, he shifted and changed into--

Fucking Yennefer of fucking Vengeberg, and Jaskier yelped and flattened himself against the wall in pure terror.

“Fuck,” he said. “Have you come to kill me? _Why_ are you going to kill me? I’m like, the _only_ person who has never done anything to you.”

Yennefer was wearing, as usual, an exquisite gown, the season’s most on-trend cut in her signature black and silver, and her face was flawless and heavily made-up, as usual, but somehow there was an air of deep weariness that shone through, sadness and exhaustion and-- well, she was still terrifying, but she looked sad, and Jaskier was an idiot fucking sucker, and said, “Er-- are you all right?”

She looked at him then, under her eyebrows, and he recoiled against the wall again, bracing for death. 

“I’m not,” she said. “Actually it’s all fucking horrible at the moment, and most of it is actively trying to kill me, but I thought perhaps this one small distracting problem was something I could solve without dying so I’m giving it a shot.”

She looked maybe twenty-five, slim and slumped and tired and beautiful, so young and sad, but Jaskier knew she wasn’t a young woman at all. It was a dangerous illusion. He understood exactly why sorceresses did it, because his every instinct was to rush to protect her, to help shield her lovely, illusory, softness. Her tiny waist, her delicate hands, her slender arms-- all of it was a mask over what she was, which was an ageless, incredibly powerful mage. She had to be a hundred years old, he’d heard tales of her that went back at least fifty. (She’d terrorized one of his relatives some decades ago, turned him into a toad or something-- probably because said relative had been a creep to her, based on Jaskier’s understanding of his own antecedents.) She wasn’t young at all, and none of this was real, and also a moment ago she’d been extremely convincingly Geralt down to the taste of his mouth and the way he kissed, and of course she knew those details but also they hadn’t been real. Jaskier scrubbed the back of his hand across his mouth, trying to be calm about the lingering taste of birch twigs.

But the sadness-- well, he’d managed to piece together more of what had actually happened at Sodden, and she’d done most of it, so probably she really was justified in feeling exhausted and beaten-down. 

She was a person, after all, even if she wasn’t really a helpless and lovely young woman.

“What problem are you having?” he asked, with a little trepidation.

She gave him a keen look. “You actually are thinking about trying to help me,” she said. 

He swallowed, uncomfortable. “I mean,” he said. “I’m not really equipped to do much. I can’t imagine what _I_ could possibly help _you_ with. But you’ve come to me, so there must be something.”

“Geralt,” she said. “My problem is Geralt. And perhaps it’s currently the least of my problems, but it is vexing me, and I thought if I come at it through your angle, perhaps I can chip away and make some progress.”

“I can’t help you hurt him,” Jaskier said darkly. 

“I’m not trying to-- My problem is not that he _exists_ ,” Yennefer clarified, exasperation creeping into her tone. “My problem is what he’s _done_ to me.”

Jaskier sighed, and let himself slump down a little, resigned. “He did tell me what he’d done to you,” he said. 

“Did he really,” Yennefer said. “Did he do so in a way that made it sound well-intentioned and heroic?”

Jaskier looked at her, _really_ looked at her, tried to see her as a person instead of just her beautiful face and soft bosom and small waist, tried not to think about the raw power in her hands. It was difficult, because she was very beautiful and also he was very afraid of her. But she looked distraught and angry, and he knew she was justified.

“He confessed it to me quietly, and awkwardly,” Jaskier said. “I was injured at the time and he’d been telling me terrible things because I couldn’t run away, was the jokey background to it, but he was dead serious and said it was time I knew what an idiot he was.”

“An idiot,” Yennefer said, “is still a very charitable description.”

Jaskier nodded. It was a serious thing, to take someone’s choice away like that. He’d had enough absolutely stupid love affairs to know that things that seemed like good ideas, desperate desires to keep someone faithful for example, never worked out but were so compelling in the moment-- and it was only luck he’d never been given a chance to control someone like that, because he’d likely have taken it and wouldn’t have realized for ages what a terrible-- and, inevitably, counterproductive-- thing he’d done. “He said his intentions had seemed reasonable at the time, and he’d thought it was the only way to keep the djinn from killing you. I can attest, he makes stupid decisions like that all the time, though usually they only wind up coming out of _his_ hide, not that of the person he’s trying to save. But he said the result was that your destinies were tied together.”

“Is that really what he wished for?” Yennefer asked, screwing up her face in incredulity or offense, Jaskier wasn’t sure.

“He didn’t repeat it verbatim,” Jaskier said. “I did ask specifically if he’d wished for you to fuck him, and he denied that, so whatever it was specifically--”

“Actually,” Yennefer said, voice mild, “that _is_ good to know.”

“He wasn’t trying to sexually subjugate you,” Jaskier said. “For what little that’s worth. Whatever he specifically did, it affects him equally.”

“He’s very noble,” she said sourly.

“He repeated that he didn’t mean for it to go quite like it did,” Jaskier said. “I’m not defending him, and he might have just been saying it to make me feel better, as I was at death’s door at the time and also he’d just got done explaining to me that his sense of smell is good enough that he’s known all about my stupid disaster baby gay crush on him from the moment we met and pretty much has picked up on every thought that’s ever crossed my empty little head in his presence, so I was already pretty creeped-out.”

That startled a laugh out of Yennefer. “I had wondered if he knew how badly you wanted him,” she said. 

“ _You_ knew _too_?” Jaskier yelped. “Oh come on!”

Yennefer gave him a look. “I’ll allow that I was pretty distracted most of the time we all were together,” she said, “but I would have to have been dead not to notice your pining. Why do you think I’m here, now, Jaskier?”

He blinked, still collecting himself. “Why _are_ you here?” 

She sighed, and tilted her head. “Because I want to know what in the entire fuck would actually compel someone to, in real life, for real, of his own free will, fall in love with Geralt of Rivia.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said.

“Also,” Yennefer said, “it seems to me, as I ruminate upon the dynamic between the two of you when first we all met, that he surely had some regard for you at that point, and it also seems to me from various observations since then that he has maintained this regard for you, if unevenly. Whereas I, by contrast, am entirely unable to even consider a liaison with anyone else besides him. So why, if this wish affects both of us equally, is _he_ able to fuck around, and _I_ am not?” 

Her voice rose in intensity as she kept speaking, and Jaskier, against his better judgement, nodded sympathetically. “No, I understand,” he said. He really wanted to say _you think he had some regard for me all that time ago? what do you mean by some regard_ but his faint sense of self-preservation held his tongue, for once. 

“You didn’t seem all that surprised when I greeted you by trying to have sex with you,” Yennefer said dangerously. “So it seems to me that must be going _just fine_ , between you two.”

“Ah,” Jaskier said, “well, not _sex_ exactly, but-- listen, do you want him or not? I’m not having a slapfight with you over him if you don’t even want him.”

“That’s what I’m trying to figure out,” she said, exasperated. “Is _any_ of it real?”

“Ah,” Jaskier said. “Well, you know, I don’t know anything about djinns or how wishes work or whatever--”

“I know you don’t,” she said. “But you _are_ ludicrously in love with that idiot. So it seems to me you are the only possible source of the information I’m looking for, which is how in the name of _fuck_ anyone could legitimately spontaneously fall in love with him.”

Jaskier nodded. “Well,” he said, “there’s the ass.”

“A lot of people have fantastic asses,” Yennefer said dangerously, unamused. 

Jaskier writhed inwardly. “Jaw,” he said. 

“An _awful_ lot of people have good facial bone structure,” Yennefer said, sounding even more dangerous. Jaskier had the tip of his tongue between his teeth and she cut him off with “Don’t you _dare_ say _thighs_ or I’ll pull your guts out through your face.”

“Listen,” Jaskier said, looking at the ceiling. “You’re more or less asking me to just rip open my own chest and show you my beating heart so you can pick at it and maybe _eat_ the parts you like. It’s not conducive to great honesty. I could show you some of my old poems, maybe, but I don’t think I can just-- vomit it all out for you right now, no matter _how_ terrifyingly you glower at me.”

“Maybe I should just kill you,” she said speculatively. 

“Maybe you should just go to that fortress or whatever where he’s holed up and _ask him directly_ , and leave me out of this,” Jaskier said.

She looked at him for a long moment. “Do you think I know where he is?” she asked finally. 

Jaskier had fucked up. He had fucked up. “Oh,” he said, “surely you--”

“You know where he is,” she said. “ _Fortress or whatever_ , hm?”

Jaskier was good at lying, was the shitty part of it-- he was _so damn good_ at lying. He knew Nilfgaard would be looking for Ciri, and he’d told half a dozen people that Geralt was dead, and he’d breathed not a single syllable that might actually reveal Geralt’s whereabouts, and here he was face to face with the most terrifying person he’d ever met and he couldn’t scrape up even a half-truth to save himself. “N-no,” he said, and it didn’t work at all. 

“How are you so bad at this?” Yennefer said. “Do you know what Fringilla would do to you to get that information? If she asks you are you just going to hang your mouth half-open and stutter _nuh nuh no_ like a struck carp?”

“Geralt died,” Jaskier said. “He’s dead. That’s what I’ve been-- that’s the-- I said nothing to most people and then I told a few close friends I’m trying to write a ballad and can’t and I’m too overcome with grief to discuss it further.”

“Yet, here we are,” Yennefer said. 

“You turned up _in his body_ so convincingly I can still _taste his mouth_ ,” Jaskier said, “I think I can be excused for not having been prepared for that.”

“It always floored me,” Yennefer said, in a completely different tone, “how disgusting he is about hygiene and yet, he’s always so careful with his teeth.”

“I don’t think his teeth heal like other parts of him,” Jaskier said. “Like, I think they’re stronger than standard human teeth, but if he gets them knocked out I don’t think they’d grow back.”

“Fair,” Yennefer said. 

“Must be he’s not immune to tooth decay,” Jaskier said, “although we did determine that he doesn’t get tapeworms. Wait, don’t you know either?”

“Why would I know?” she asked.

“You’re a mage,” Jaskier said. “An Aretuza-educated mage. Their library must be-- surely you know, like, _everything_ about, uh,” he trailed off at her dubious expression. “Magical. Stuff. Like. Like Witchers. Right?”

“Witchers are their own thing,” Yennefer said. “They don’t tell anyone their secrets. Which is why there are no more Witchers because everyone who knew what their thing was got killed so they can’t make any more.” Then she made a face. “Tapeworms?”

“You know,” Jaskier said, making a face and a nonspecific gesture. “Tapeworms.”

“I know what tapeworms are,” Yennefer said, “I grew up on a farm. What are you talking about?”

“Geralt doesn’t get tapeworms,” Jaskier said. “He figures he’s probably poisonous to them. Or all the potions he takes, anyway; no time for them to get established. He didn’t really know they were a thing until I explained them. Which is why he can just. Eat whole raw dead things and not worry about it.”

“That’s disgusting,” Yennefer said.

“You’re telling _me_ ,” Jaskier said. “He never did that in front of you?”

“No,” she said.

“Just, grabbed a rabbit, snapped its neck, ate the whole thing bones and all?” Jaskier made a vague pantomime of the neck-snapping movement and then wished he hadn’t. “Usually leaves the skin but not always.”

“That’s horrible,” she said. “What the _fuck_.”

“He does that all the time,” Jaskier said. “I mean, like, _all the time_. So I had to explain to him that humans can’t eat like that not only because it’s gross but also because we’d get worms and die. Do you _know_ what kind of parasites rabbits can harbor? Well done for me, thanks.”

“That’s absolutely _repulsive_ ,” Yennefer said. 

“He’ll do it with deer too but at least he has to cut them up first,” Jaskier said. “Though it’s really impressive how much of one he can just. Eat. Bones and all, it’s incredibly fucked-up.”

“Stop,” she said. “Oh my gods, stop.” 

“He’s _so_ disgusting, Yennefer, and not at all for any of the reasons people think Witchers are gross. Just, on a personal, human level, he is a _repulsive person_. With _terrible_ habits.” He gestured wildly. “And I know he has to have been dialing that back for you, because he was _making an effort_ for you, and I wonder if that was on purpose or if he felt compelled or what, but it was _deeply weird_ to witness it and I don’t know how I feel about discovering that it was a whole bizarre djinn-inspired mindfuck.”

“And yet,” Yennefer said, “you still fucked him, of your own free will, without compulsion.”

“I _wish_ I fucked him,” Jaskier said. “We never got to, there wasn’t any privacy.”

“Even with him eating whole rabbits right in front of you,” Yennefer said. 

“Yes,” Jaskier said, defeated. “I have no standards. I can’t help it.”

“Does he have you under some spell?” she wondered. “I know Witchers can cast spells, I know that’s a thing they can do, but he never told me what they were.”

“Oh,” Jaskier said, “he showed us some of them. They’re… he called them cantrips, or signs. He put a mind-control one on my horse and burnt the fuck out of himself holding it in place for the five minutes it took him to deal with the situation.”

“Burnt,” Yennefer said, frowning. 

“It was,” Jaskier said, and paused, trying to think. He hadn’t gotten a great look at it. “Mind, I was distracted, because I was actually pinned to my horse by an arrow shaft through my leg throughout the entire ordeal, which let me tell you if you’ve never tried that? _don’t_ , but as I recall it was just-- it was literally like, a symbol he drew or shaped or something, in the air, and then had to hold, and it was, ah, kind of fizzing or radiating or something? And he stuck it between his teeth because he needed his hands free, and it left horrible blisters in his mouth.”

Yennefer pondered that. “That doesn’t sound like the sort of thing he could put on you and leave for twenty years,” she said. “If they’re really cantrips... I mean, a proper cantrip, you don’t even have to have any direct magical abilities yourself to cast them, if someone else made them for you. And they don’t last twenty years.”

“No,” Jaskier said. 

“You’re lucky if you get twenty seconds,” she went on. “Now, _I_ could put a spell on you and leave it for twenty years.” She grinned toothily, not a friendly expression.

“I am aware,” Jaskier said, “at every moment, of just how terrifying you are, my lady, and I have never not been aware of it.”

She grinned fiercer. “Good,” she said. “I like that about you.” But then she slumped over a little. “This isn’t how I get you to tell me what I need to know, though.”

“No, lady,” Jaskier said. 

“I can get it out of you,” she said, turning to consider him.

Jaskier shrank back against the wall, resigned: there was no one he could call for help, because she was possibly the most powerful mage on the Continent and anyone he involved would just be doomed by it. No, he had to endure this as best he could. He pulled his knees up to his chest, and gave her an unhappy look over them. “ _Please_ don’t hurt me,” he said quietly. “You know I’m not-- doing it to hurt you. I was pathetic about him before you showed up and I’ll be pathetic about him until I die probably but that doesn’t mean you have to cut that short.”

She pulled her mouth wryly to one side, though there was no mercy in her beautiful, terrifying violet eyes. “I just need a comparison,” she said. “Between your feelings and mine. So I can get a better idea of whether mine are real.”

“You’re up late and you can’t sleep and you’re lonely,” Jasier said, before he could reel it in.

She stared at him, and he closed his eyes so he wouldn’t see death coming. “You’re arguably the strongest mage on the Continent,” he said, “but you’re also a person, and having feelings like a person is not surprising.”

“I don’t really need a lecture on what I’m feeling,” she said. 

“I know you don’t,” Jaskier said, opening his eyes, “but I’m trying to get my mouth running, all right, and sometimes that means I have to prime the pump with whatever’s there. But if I don’t talk you’re going to get it out of me some other way and I’m not eager to find out what methods you have besides talking.”

“I can just pull it out of you,” she said. “But I’m rather busy with a lot of other magics I’m having to keep running at the same time so honestly it would be ever so much more convenient if you talked, and it would leave you in better condition to keep on with your life afterward, as a nice bonus. I don’t care about that, but _you_ might.”

“Okay!” Jaskier said. “Okay. So, my deepest darkest most private secret that I’m terrible at keeping is that I’ve cared far too deeply about this Witcher for my entire adult life, and I’m just going to-- _analyze_ that, for you.”

“Yes,” she said. “Do go on.”

“I wrote some-- songs about it,” Jaskier tried.

“If you sing I will just kill you and end this entire excruciating ordeal,” Yennefer said. “Believe it or not I read some of your poems to research this before I came here and if you refer to them I will probably also just kill you.”

“Everyone’s a critic,” Jaskier said, harried.

“So just _tell me_ ,” she said. “You just told me all about how disgusting he is. So why are you there? What is it that makes you still follow him around and watch him do these repulsive things?”

Jaskier made a hopeless gesture and fumbled over words for a moment. “Listen,” he said, “I write poems because it’s the only way I can organize my thoughts. I’m not good at just--”

“You’re _plenty_ good at talking,” she said. 

“The first thing I ever saw him do was take a job he didn’t want because the person asking him needed him to do it,” Jaskier blurted. “And then when the beast he was hunting turned out to be able to talk he refused to kill it, because you can’t kill things that talk until you’ve tried talking them out of whatever it is that has people taking out contracts on them. And then he got ambushed and captured, and instead of fighting he sat there and told the people who’d captured him and beaten him until he was spitting blood that they were absolutely justified in their anger and were welcome to kill him if that was what they had to do. And then when they freed him instead, he _gave them all his money_. Because they needed it more than he did.”

Yennefer stared at him. “He’s an idiot,” she said. “Oh my gods, that’s it, he’s an idiot and you’re an idiot and this is how idiots mate.”

“That’s not my point!” Jaskier said, gesturing emphatically, which meant that he nearly hit himself in the face because he still had his legs curled up like somehow they’d keep Yennefer from gutting him. “My point is, Yennefer, he is a _deeply decent_ person. He is far more concerned with things being right than with them going well for him. He is prepared to do the right thing until it kills him, because it’s the right thing.”

“That’s _stupid_ ,” Yennefer said. “That’s not admirable, that’s stupid!”

“It is incredibly powerful,” Jaskier said. “There’s a reason people write songs about that kind of shit, because it is incredibly difficult to do but if you can do it-- it’s something so much bigger than one person. He’s not a good person, no, but he is at his core so deeply compelled by this sense that you always have to try to do the right thing-- even if there is no right thing, you still have to die trying.”

“He’s _so stupid_ ,” Yennefer said, sounding genuinely distraught. “There _is_ no right thing. Even when it’s difficult and seems like it’s really the right answer it’s always wrong, there’s always someone standing to profit from it and _there are no good guys_ , Jaskier.”

“No,” Jaskier said stoutly, “but you still have to _try_.”

“Don’t you talk to _me_ about--” She bit off whatever she was going to say and turned her face away, hands clenched in her lap. Something about her appearance shimmered, and Jaskier had a glimpse that perhaps her face wasn’t heavily made-up, perhaps it was an illusion over something-- for an instant, the eye he could see as she faced away in profile looked white and clouded instead of violet.

There was a moment of silence, and he could hear her breathing, and then she looked at him, composed and flawless and cold.

Jaskier took a deep breath, and then let it out, and then spoke.

“I was an eyewitness to part of the Battle of Sodden Field,” he said quietly, “but I could not understand what was going on. I spoke to so many other witnesses, trying to compile my notes to give to the historians here-- I knew it would be important to tell the story clearly, unembellished, as factual as possible, so that future generations could know what had happened. And I didn’t know, really, what had happened; only that Nilfgaard’s forces had advanced right up to an undefended fortress, in the end, burned and emptied, and then had been turned back by a flood of flame, some witnesses said-- and I did see evidence of that, I’d seen the light of it, in the dark, and the next day I saw the burned areas, twisted human carcasses sticking up out of the wreck here and there-- but no one could tell me what had happened.”

Yennefer stared at him, silent and cold.

“But I heard whispers of your name, Yennefer,” he went on. “People said it had been you, you alone, who had held until King Foltest had been able to get his forces to the pass. There were names of other mages spoken, and people said they were dead, or debilitated, or missing-- and you were missing, Yennefer, but it was said, it was you. You were the hero of the battle.”

She glanced down at her hands for a moment, then looked back up at him, but still said nothing.

“And you’re telling me you did that for no cause but your own glory,” Jaskier said. “Your own power. And then you hid, and spoke to no one, and told no one what you’d done, and only the coincidence of a survivor recognizing you just before everything went to shit meant that anyone was even whispering your name. But you didn’t do it to do the right thing, you didn’t do it to save the North. I’m sure it didn’t cost you anything, and you’re distraught and sleepless and bothering me over what you just identified as the smallest and most manageable of your problems because you’re just bored of being so all-powerful and satisfied all the time.”

“I haven’t _saved the North_ ,” Yennefer said finally, and it burst out of her as if against her will. “I haven’t done anything that one can point to and say it was purely good. There are no good guys. I did it because Tissaia asked. I did it to spite Fringilla. I did it for selfish reasons. I don’t know, Jaskier, and it hasn’t solved anything, and I have _never been satisfied one day in my entire life_.”

Her breathing was ragged. Jaskier let his knees down, finally, and sat with his legs criss-crossed on the bed, shoulders slumped. He was so tired. “You’re not wrong,” he said. “There is no black or white, no easy answer you can point to and call the right thing. It’s not like a card game. Nilfgaard is brutally repressive to the territories they conquer, but once they have them, well-- accounts are that they’re well-administered, and the people living there have good lives. But there’s no denying that when they first conquer a territory, they kill without mercy and cause widespread misery and devastation. And their religious fervor is… unsettlingly uniform.”

“They’re horrible,” Yennefer said, “but the nobles who rule the North now are terrible people too. Do you know how long I was a court mage? I saw all of it, all of their terrible behavior, what _bad people_ they all are--”

“You know who I am, right?” Jaskier said. “If you’ve read my poems, my real name’s on them.”

She blinked at him, pausing in her diatribe. “What?”

“Julian Alfred Pancratz,” he said, letting disdain drip from his voice as he made his accent as blue as his mother’s. “I barely dodged becoming the Viscount de _fucking_ Lettenhove. Do you think I don’t know how fucking terrible the nobles of the North are, up close and personally? I _am_ one, and worse, had them for _parents_.”

“I spent _entire human lifetimes_ at court,” she said, but some of the intensity had gone out of her voice.

“I’ve just spent mine,” Jaskier said wearily. “Which is all I have.” He waved a hand, palm up, helpless. “I’m not defending them at all. They’re all terrible people and they can go rot. But they’re _people_. Power corrupts, sure, so they’re on average marginally worse people than the average, but they’re still just people. And the people they rule over don’t deserve to be slaughtered, trampled, and forcibly converted to a creepy religion. You put yourself on the line to give them a fighting chance to survive, and it was the right thing, Yennefer. You did the right thing, because it was the right thing.”

“What if it wasn’t?” she demanded.

“That’s outside the scope of the question,” Jaskier said. “Isn’t that it? You can’t know, when you choose to do the right thing, what will end up happening in the end. All you can do, is the best you can do with what you have, with what you know. You have to choose what you think is right. And maybe it doesn’t work out, and maybe it does, and maybe you die, and maybe you lose, but at least you made the choice. That’s what’s important, that’s all you can do in the moment, regardless of what it costs you.”

“It’s stupid,” she said faintly. 

“It’s not,” Jaskier said. “It’s human. You did the right thing, Yennefer. And I’m not just saying that because I’m one of the idiots you saved by it.”

“It cost me a lot,” she said, fainter, and the illusion trembled again. 

“But it was the right thing,” he said. “It doesn’t matter why you did it and it doesn’t matter what it cost you. What matters is, you did it. You stood up, and you did it.”

“It doesn’t matter what it cost me,” she said, with a quiet, bitter laugh. “It doesn’t matter?”

Jaskier sighed. “All right,” he said, “of course it does, but that’s also outside the scope of the question. And you knew, going in, what it might cost, surely.”

She didn’t answer, for a moment. “I did,” she said finally. 

“But you did it anyway,” he said.

“I did,” she said. 

“It was the right thing to do,” he said. “Now, a separate question is, what are you going to do with what’s left, and how are you going to fix what you’ve lost, and so on. Those questions matter, but they’re apart from that first one. Whatever your reasons, what you did was brave, and you are the hero of Sodden Field, and the savior of the North.”

“Fat lot of good it does,” she said morosely. 

“Well,” Jaskier said. “It means you’re in the same boat as Geralt is most of the time, to loop this back, reluctant as I actually am to do so, to the ostensible purpose of this conversation.”

She looked at him, then, and laughed sharply. “Does that mean you’ll fall in love with me?” she asked.

Jaskier gave her a tight smile. “It’s a start,” he said. “There’s more to it than that, but it’s a starting place. However, I might remind you, my love is no particular reward for anyone.”

“You’re kind of a slut,” Yennefer said, sounding almost fond.

“Tsk,” Jaskier said, indignant, “I’m a giving and generous person.”

“Who isn’t picky,” Yennefer said.

“I’ll have you know I’m _very_ picky,” Jaskier said. “I just tend to… cast my net wider, than most. I find something admirable in someone, in their person or in their personality or in their presentation, somewhere, and I appreciate the unique qualities of a person, and I take them to bed, or to wherever’s convenient really. But if I don’t find anything to admire, I don’t. I’m not insincere about any of it, I’m just trying to experience more of life’s rich cornucopia.” He deflated slightly. “Actually I’ve slowed down on all of that a lot and it might be because I’m finally old and cynical, or maybe I’m just too old to be pretty anymore, but I’ve a terrible suspicion it’s really mostly that I’m too _tired_.”

“And not because you’re too besotted with your Witcher,” Yennefer put in.

Jaskier laughed. “If that were going to stop me,” he said, “I’d have been celibate twenty years now. Who knows! And never a thought that he might relent. No, dear, I’d be dead by now, probably.” 

She gave him a dagger-eyes sort of look, and he remembered that she’d said she couldn’t sleep with anyone else but Geralt. He thought about that a moment. 

“If I hadn’t figured out you weren’t Geralt when you first got here,” Jaskier said, “what was your plan? How far were you going to take that?”

“I was going to fuck you,” she said. 

He chewed on his lower lip for a moment. “As Geralt, though?”

“I’m not flattering myself when I say I’ve good reason to believe you wouldn’t have noticed a difference physically,” she said. 

“Really,” he said.

“My illusions are more than just cosmetic,” she said. “Though I suppose if you haven’t actually fucked him, you might not appreciate just how faithful my rendition of his particulars is.” And the illusion over her rippled for a moment, and she was sitting there as Geralt, naked and magnificently erect, every scar illumined in loving detail, and then the illusion rippled again, and she was in her own body, that of a young woman, bare-breasted and wearing only a harness around her loins with an astonishing replica of an erection standing up from it, exactly as big as the one that had adorned her form as Geralt. She gave him a wolfish grin, and then the illusion rippled again and she was back in her exquisite gown and full face of cosmetics, with her hands demurely in her lap. 

Jaskier swallowed with some difficulty. He had a particular weakness for women with strapped-on replica cocks, and he also had a bone-deep certainty that if any woman knew how to use one of those, it would be this one. But, he was also terrified of her, and he was fairly certain that none of the visions she had just shown him were even what she looked like at present. 

“I can see how,” he said carefully, “that would be convincing.” He gathered himself and continued, “But the question then was, if you haven’t been able to fuck anyone but Geralt, how would you fuck me, _as_ Geralt? I mean, what kind of parameters are we working with, here? Does something physically stop you?”

“Inclination,” she said, leaning back on both arms wearily and tilting her head toward the ceiling. “I just can’t keep up the interest long enough to actually see it through.”

“Oh,” he said. “So probably the suspense of seeing whether I’d figure it out would’ve kept you going.”

“Yes,” she said, “I rather thought so. And it would have been a perfect opportunity to sift through your emotions and figure out whether they were real. Really, you’ve done us both a disservice by being too quick on the uptake by half.” She sat up and looked directly at him. “I don’t suppose you fancy giving it a go anyway.”

He eyed her with trepidation. “You’d hurt me for fun,” he said.

“I’d expected you’d like that,” she said coquettishly. 

“Mm,” he said, “it surprises a lot of people that I don’t. I’ve learned to say so up front. I happen not to like pain very much.” He licked his lips nervously. “Particularly when, if you’ll pardon my saying so, it’s coupled with genuine fear for my own safety.”

She pouted, and he could tell it was an act. “You’re no kind of fun,” she said. 

He sighed deeply, rolling his head on his neck to stretch the tension out of his shoulders. There was no point being afraid. There was nothing he could do to make her less dangerous. She wasn’t going to go away and let him sleep-- or if she did, she’d be back at any time she felt like. 

So he might as well uphold his own reputation. Meet death sitting down, offer it wine, have a pleasant conversation. That sort of thing. 

“Darling,” he said, “I am _all kinds_ of fun _._ ” He leaned back against the headboard, uncrossing his legs and letting them sprawl down the bed toward her. “But we need to bargain, here. I’m not the kind of girl to just spread my legs for anyone with a pretty cock, though I allow yours _is_ exceptionally pretty and you wear it well. But, we need to make a deal.”

“A deal,” she said, looking interested. “What kind of deal?”

“I will let you plumb my innermost depths, sexually and emotionally,” he said, “if,” and he cocked one leg, putting his elbow on his knee to gesture, “you promise, number one, not to damage me irreparably, and number two,” he gestured again, holding up two fingers, “to give me something I desperately want in return.” He may not have had quite the charms he had in his twenties, but he still was good at this kind of flirting-- better, really; he knew how to make better deals now, and had mostly mastered the fine art of commitment to a schtick. He had only gained skill in eyefucking as well, and from her expression, she was responsive to it. 

Funny, he’d never thought she found him particularly attractive. But, really, any port in a storm, and if this was not a season of many storms, then what was it? And perhaps it was the fascination of fucking someone Geralt was interested in fucking, though that part had faded back into dreamlike unreality as far as Jaskier’s sense of self was concerned.

Mm, likely that was it; if she had sex with him while disguised as Geralt, she could really make it so he thought of her whenever he was with the witcher, which would probably please her greatly. But, well, he didn’t see another way out of this. And there was a large part of him that was fairly convinced he’d never see Geralt again; now Geralt had a daughter, what did he need a bard for? Certainly not for company. 

Older, but no wiser really, Jaskier thought of himself, and commended his spirits to whichever gods had kept him alive this long. 

“Can I just pick _anything_ that you desperately want,” Yennefer said, “or did you have something specific in mind?”

Right, she _was_ a powerful mage.

“I did have something specific in mind,” he said. “Specifically, what it is that I want, is a written account, by you, to me, outlining the specific events of what really happened at the Battle of Sodden Field, especially including anyone you can confirm as killed, any major troop movements, really specific stuff. Because it is important to history, and also if I get that I can lord it over the asshole history professor who has been so catty about my inability to produce a coherent account of the battle up to this point.”

She gazed at him in clear surprise. “That’s really all you want from me,” she said. 

“It’s enough, isn’t it?” he said. “I know you’re a powerful mage and could do all sorts of improbable things but, let’s be real here, I’m not doing all that much for you, and you’re also the only person who I think actually has any chance of telling me what really happened. I’m not going to ask you for an elixir of youth or the gift of flight or something. I just want the truth, for posterity, and also for petty one-upmanship, and I feel like we can understand one another on this well enough to genuinely make an arrangement.”

She considered it a moment. “Fair,” she said. “When you say, _damage you irreparably_ , I am going to be charitable and assume that you mean that to include any necessary repairs. It wouldn’t quite be in the spirit of things if I damaged you to a point that I could repair, but no one else could, and then declined to perform the repair.”

That was, in fact, a fairly major oversight. Jaskier sighed. “I’d rather not be damaged at all,” he said, “but you are correct, and I thank you for your sweet consideration in this amendation.”

“Everyone gets damaged all the time,” she said. “But, I’m going to be honest here, you’ve won my consideration by _not_ asking for something absolutely mad.”

“I try,” he said lightly. 

“Really, though,” she said, “wouldn’t you rather have riches or fame? Vigor, youth? Something like that?”

Jaskier shook his head. “You know what it’s like to want something real,” he said. 

She stared at him for a moment. “Touché,” she said. “Well, then, shall we?”

“Mm, one moment,” he said, and stood, going over to the armoire in the corner that held most of his worldly possessions, the ones that didn’t fit in his saddlebags. He threw open the door and rummaged for a moment before retrieving a wineskin and a pair of horn cups. “Let’s do this properly?”

A half a cup of wine later, he had shed his shoes and socks and managed to shake out some of his terrified nervousness. Yennefer had vanished the stiff formal gown and was wearing a light embroidered gauzy robe that her breasts were perfectly visible through. She still had her perfect face on, however. 

She set her cup of wine on the bedside table and said, “Let’s get on with this,” and immediately she was Geralt, prowling up the bed toward Jaskier.

“Oh,” Jaskier said, and set his wine down. “Er, ah, actually-- listen, it’s uh. The likeness is actually fairly unnerving. Could we do this with you as yourself?”

In a blink, she was herself again, on her knees above him, expression quizzical. “I didn’t think you were into women?” she said.

“Um,” Jaskier said, “you must _really_ have been distracted the entire time you’ve known me. The _only_ thing I’m not picky about is what’s in your drawers. Just because I’ve never come onto _you_ doesn’t mean I don’t like women in general. I’m just terrified of you, as I absolutely should be.”

“You should,” she said, a little distracted. She sat back, and fidgeted with her robe. “I-- do you want the cock?” she asked, and it manifested itself, protruding magnificently out the opened front of the robe. The harness part was hot too, looped around her hips, beautifully tooled black leather with little silver rivets. Oh, like Geralt’s armor. What attention to detail. 

“Mmm, yes,” Jaskier said, biting his lip a little. “I believe the arrangement was that _you’re_ fucking _me,_ and that would be easiest and, arguably, most thorough.”

“I spent so long working on the Geralt-face,” she said. “Can’t I use it a little?”

“Maybe a little,” Jaskier said, “once I’m warmed up.” He would regret that immediately, he was sure. Speaking of warming up… well, it didn’t matter. His performance didn’t matter at all, in this. He was still terrified of her, but he was sure he’d get there; she really did have fantastic breasts. 

He was forty-one, not _dead_.

He was probably going to regret all of this, in short order, but, well. Everyone had to die sometime. Better to face death head-on, and make oneself comfortable. Maybe spread one’s legs.

He unbuttoned his shirt to the bottom of the placket, and undid the cuffs. “So,” he said, “just so you’re aware, the sum total of me having any idea Geralt returned any of my interest consists of him kissing me, mm, twice? Three times? And of us rubbing one another off one solitary time.”

“That’s it?” Yennefer said. She sat next to him, setting her back against the headboard next to him, and unfastened her robe so it lay open, the cock standing up proudly, and her perfect breasts exposed. 

“Oh,” Jaskier said, “and he sucked my cock once. I wasn’t allowed to reciprocate because he’d poisoned himself pretty badly and was certain that I’d get killed by whatever residues his body was shedding.”

“Ah,” she said. “Yes, that is a reasonable concern. Witchers put some truly horrifying things into their potions.”

“He nearly died after you rescued him,” Jaskier pointed out. “You got the mornat out, but there was so much toxic shit built up he was delirious most of the next day, and Ciri said he spent the whole day addressing her by my name. It took him something like three days to get his night vision back. Weak as a newborn, and shaking and sweating.”

“I nearly died after I rescued him,” Yennefer said. “I was barely alive after Sodden. I’m amazed I had enough power and coordination left to get the mornat out of him. I was almost completely blind at that point.”

Greatly daring, Jaskier reached gently over and touched her face. “And now?” he asked.

She twitched a little, but let him touch her. “I’m,” she said. “Healing. Slowly. It’s amazing what you can do, with magic.”

“Let me see,” he whispered. 

“No,” she answered. “I’m not here for your pity.”

“Fair,” he whispered, and took his hand away from her face. “It’s not like I can help.”

“What I want,” she said, “is for you to suck my cock. You wanted to, didn’t you?”

“Yes,” Jaskier said fervently, and sat up. 

On one level, he could tell that the cock was an artifact carefully carved from wood, and lacquered beautifully, but on the other hand, it was enchanted enough that it smelled and tasted real, and he had no doubt it was perfectly authentic to the real thing. He set to work on it in earnest, and even without a Witcher’s sense of smell he could still tell that Yennefer was enjoying it on her own account, and not just for pretend. 

At one point she put a heavy, callused hand on the back of his neck, and he whimpered and refused to look up at what he knew would be Geralt’s face. But, mostly, he could lose himself to it; this was something he liked doing and he had absolutely been fantasizing about doing it to Geralt for the bulk of his adult life. 

“You love that,” she purred, and it was quite convincingly Geralt’s voice, if not a tone he would ever use, “don’t you.”

Jaskier just hummed in response, swallowing until his eyes rolled back. What would be just perfect would be if she’d let him put his fingers in her, but he wasn’t going to initiate anything, especially not something that would concretely demonstrate that he was aware she wasn't Geralt. 

She finally pulled him off her by the hair, and pulled him up and kissed him, savage and vicious and with her own face on. “Gods,” she said, “you’re so enthusiastic.”

“I don’t do things by halves,” he said, hoarse and out of breath. 

She pushed him down on the bed and stripped his trousers off of him with economical movements, then climbed up onto the bed between his legs. He was plenty aroused now, but he had a moment of deep concern that she didn’t know you can’t just fuck a man the way one would a woman. Not that one should do that with a woman either, but they were at least sometimes amenable. But she sat back on her heels and looked him over, chewing the cosmetic paint off her lower lip as she did so.

“You are a pretty thing,” she said. “I don’t know how he hasn’t eaten you alive.”

“As we know, he well could,” Jaskier said, “and wouldn’t even get tapeworms.”

“Have you got worms?” Yennefer asked mildly, not apparently much taken-aback.

“Not lately,” Jaskier said. “That I know of.” 

“That’s good to know,” she said, and actually laughed, a genuine, helpless little snicker of amusement. “Are you always-- no, I’ve known you long enough that I know fine well that you’re always like this.”

Jaskier shrugged. “I am what I am,” he said. “And by that, I mean, currently probably not worm-infested.”

“Nor, devoured by a Witcher,” she said, and leaned forward over him, holding herself up on a hand, collapsing down to an elbow. Her breasts were firm and soft against his ribs, and she closed her hand around his erection, which made him groan. “Can I? Can I use the face?”

“If you insist,” Jaskier said. Probably better to do it now. He squeezed his eyes shut, and then opened them and Geralt was braced up over him, propped on an elbow, looking down at him with a keen solemn sort of gaze, and stroking one callused hand across Jaskier’s belly, from ribs on one side to hip on the other.

“Hm,” she said, in Geralt’s voice, and gave his cock a good stroke. “You can still change your mind, you know.”

Jaskier considered it, staring up at Geralt’s face. She’d made him look just out of the bath, freshly-shaved, hair nearly dry now and loose around his face. There was no trace of the healed blisters on his lip from the sign he’d held in his mouth; those scars had still been faintly visible, when Jaskier had last seen him, but it was likely they were really gone now too. Something in his chest panged; he really did wish this was genuinely Geralt. He wanted to see him, wanted to know how he was doing. Wanted this, but with him, of course. 

But he also wanted to see a thing he’d begun through, and he wanted very, very badly to shove a completed coherent factual account of the Battle of Sodden Field into the face of his idiot colleague who for twenty years had been coasting on the assumption that the purer study of history was done from within an institution and never from within the field. And sure, Jaskier would be writing his account from within an institution, but if he hadn’t spent twenty years going out into the field he wouldn’t have had the trust of the source, and if it also had put his literal ass on the line, well, that was just icing, he loved scandalizing his coworkers.

“Do I look like I want to back out of this deal?” he asked. 

“No,” she said, “but it was the kind of thing he’d ask, wasn’t it?” It was Geralt’s voice but she wasn’t even making an attempt at the tone now, and the smug expression-- well, Geralt made that face sometimes, she wasn’t far off. He was an asshole. “You really are giving me everything I wanted just from this,” she said, and Jaskier realized he was staring up at Geralt’s face and thinking about Geralt and getting progressively more turned-on as she kept working his cock with her hand. 

“You’re not, like-- _taking_ it, right?” Jaskier said shakily. 

“What do you mean?” she asked. 

“I mean-- you’re observing, not changing, right?” He didn’t know how this worked. If she could-- see his emotions, and analyze them, could she remove them? Was she planning to take out the parts of him that loved Geralt? Was she just going to leave him hollow?

“What, your feelings?” She laughed. “Jaskier, I don’t think I _could_ take them, they’re so woven through all of you.”

“There wouldn’t be much left,” he said, and it felt like he was admitting a lot. “Will you fuck me already?”

“I said I wouldn’t damage you,” she said. “I do know how this works.” But she took her hand off his dick, and leaned up to get something off his nightstand-- a little pot of salve, that wasn’t his, that smelled sweetly of herbs and suddenly made him really think of Geralt, down in his belly, a familiar scent he hadn’t known he recognized. 

He closed his eyes and tipped his head back as she opened him up, because it was too much, it was too much to look at Geralt’s face rapt with concentration and know it was her. “Jaskier,” she murmured, in her own voice, and he made himself look at her. 

“Hi,” he said. She was herself, robe shed, beautiful olive skin gleaming, watching him with a soft half-focused intensity, black hair falling artfully across her brow. 

“How have you survived so long, in this hard cold world, while being so soft and kind?” she asked, and drove her fingers in, firm and knowing, supporting herself on an elbow and working his cock with her other hand. 

“Reflexes and luck,” he said. 

“No,” she said. 

“Some bored deity-- _hah_ \-- likes my poetry,” he tried, having to pause in the middle of it when she got him just right on a lucky stroke and he saw stars for a second. 

“You don’t want that,” she said dryly, but made an encouraged little noise and tried again, and while she didn’t get him quite so intensely again, things got very pleasant for a little while and he found himself making needy little noises and writhing in her grip.

“Gods, you’re so _sweet_ ,” she said hungrily. “Mm. Just so you know, Geralt’s not really a talker.”

“I’m aware,” Jaskier said breathlessly.

“But if you praise him in bed he doesn’t know what to do,” she said. “Gets all twitchy. Can’t stand it. If you keep it up he gets off like anything.”

“Oh no,” Jaskier said. 

“Think about it,” Yennefer said. “People are mean to him all the time. You hardly have to be nice at all for him to be like clay in your hands, if you can persist past the initial resistance.”

“That might be-- nngh-- the djinn thing though,” Jaskier said, but even as he said it, he knew it wasn’t. Yennefer looked at him and he said, “No, you’re right, that’s him.”

“I’ve seen him do it with just about anyone who asks him a genuine question or in any way engages him like a real person,” Yennefer said, sounding almost bored, but then she bent down and suddenly kissed Jaskier, with her own face and her own soft lips, and he opened for her desperately. “Mm but where are your weaknesses? I don’t even have to try, to take you apart,” she said, and she rolled up onto her knees, and positioned herself between his thighs. He looked up at her, breathing hard. 

“I’ve never mastered the art of hiding my weaknesses,” Jaskier said. “People find them anyway, why bother? Just put them out there. Let people have them. Easier that way.”

She was stroking a hand along her cock now, and it glistened and he couldn’t take his eyes off it except for how fantastic her breasts also looked, and also he kept feeling like he had to look into her face to make sure it was really hers, so really he was rapidly cycling among the three and his heart was maybe going to pop right out of his chest. 

She was going to devour him. He was as ready for it as he possibly could be. 

“I just remembered why your name’s familiar,” she said. “I turned your-- would he be your grandfather?-- into a toad, for groping me.”

He hadn’t expected that, but he bared his teeth in a grin anyway. “I heard all about it,” he said. “Unfortunately he changed back.”

“Did he at least learn a lesson?” Yennefer asked.

“No,” Jaskier said, “I learned really early to do just about anything to avoid having to sit in Grandpa’s lap.”

“Ew,” Yennefer said, recoiling slightly.

“Oh yeah,” Jaskier said. “Did you think I was lying?” He laughed bitterly. “Maybe you spent lifetimes at court but I spent my _childhood_ there.”

“How have you survived?” Yennefer demanded. 

“I said,” Jaskier said, “if you just put your weaknesses out there, people find them and stop looking. Better yet, you make up funny songs about them yourself, and then it’s done with and people move on.”

She stared at him, face flushed and chest moving with fast breaths. “You really don’t have a backup plan,” she said. “I assumed you were pretending to give me what I wanted, here--”

“No,” Jaskier said. “I’m outmatched. You have me dead to rights. If I can wring a concession I will, but no, this isn’t like, an opening Gwent move or something. If you’re going to hurt me then you’re going to hurt me. At least I can console myself that I went into it with good faith.”

She sat there for a long moment, staring at him, and then moved forward, lying down on top of him and kissing him again. “I’m not going to hurt you,” she said. “More than I have to. To get what I need.”

“See, I knew we could work this out,” he said. 

“You’re an idiot,” she said. 

“It’s a way to live,” he answered. 

After that he actually shut up for a few moments, a bit overwhelmed as she worked herself-- well, Geralt’s cock-- into him. It was a lot, and it was maybe too much, but it was also fucking hot, and it wasn’t just that it was Geralt’s cock, it was also that it was Yennefer’s breasts, and she kept looking at him with this strange intense everything. 

“Fuck,” he hissed finally, as she started moving.

“I’ve got you,” she said. Her body was already slick with sweat against his, her face avid. She laughed softly, not cruelly, and said, “I didn’t think I wanted to do this for its own merits but I do, Jaskier, you’re so lovely.”

“Glad I rate,” he said tightly. He couldn’t help holding on to the backs of her arms, clinging to her a bit. He was breathing hard and couldn’t even tell what his body was doing. 

“I don’t even have to be Geralt for this,” she said. “You’re just so wide open to me, Jaskier, you’re giving me everything.”

“I should hope so,” he said. He didn’t know what she was talking about.

She put one hand along the side of his face. “Well,” she said, “I can see what other kinds of idiots you’ve given your heart to, over the years.” And suddenly, her face was that of the Countess de Stael, as she’d looked the last time they’d made love, must be seven years ago now, or eight, and Jaskier shivered in mingled delight and horror, because the fair and lovely Countess was in fact the last person who’d topped him like this and it was a lot, oh dear, it was a lot.

“I can’t tell if you like that,” Yennefer said, herself again.

“No,” he said, staring at the ceiling, but it wasn’t entirely true. 

“You loved her, but never like Geralt,” Yennefer purred. “It was transactional.”

“If you want me to cry you could just ask,” Jaskier said. He was feeling a lot of things. It was a lot. Yes, he’d performed a lot of his devotion to her because she’d been so rich and powerful, but he’d been sincere about a lot of it too, and he hadn’t had the strength to sift through those ashes for more than a cursory song or two and one truly devastating poem.

“Would you really,” she said. Then, when he didn’t answer, she said, “No, I don’t want you to cry.” And she set to work stroking him off in rhythm with her thrusts, sweet and knowing and almost good enough, almost-- but only almost, and the longer it went on, the wider the almost began to grow. He just had time to wonder how she’d decide when she’d had enough, when she slowed, and then carefully, carefully pulled out of him. 

He wasn’t really near a point of no return, so he didn’t protest beyond being unable to hold back a moan at how it felt, but then she looked into his face and said, “I’ve had plenty of that, can we do something else now?”

“Yes,” he said, “anything you, whatever you need,” and then she crawled up and sat on his cock, sinking all the way down on it in one go. It was so shockingly good it punched a “Fuck,” out of him, and she moaned. 

“Yes,” she said, “oh, that’s nice,” and threw her head back and started to bounce herself up and down along his length and _fuck_ , it was exquisite, hot and slick and tight. 

“Oh fuck,” he said eloquently, trying to say something else but completely failing. 

“I could tell you weren’t into that anymore,” she said, “and I’ve really wanted-- oh _fuck_ this is-- I haven’t been able to-- that’s it, right there, that’s it,” and she sucked in a shrill gasp, shivering, her body bowing slightly backwards as she ground down against him, gripping tight, and then she came, undeniably, shuddering and clenching around him, _fuck_ , and it sent him quite out of his mind for a moment as he clutched at her hips and thrust mindlessly up into her and came so hard he forgot who they were and what was happening.

He fumbled along on pure reflex for a few moments, and only came back to himself as she was lying next to and partly on top of him, stroking his face gently. 

“You’re such a sweet idiot,” she said. 

The illusion was gone from her face; she had faint scars that were just lighter marks in her skin now, running up her cheeks, and one eye was clouded white along the iris, the other strangely bi-colored with the iris blue at the bottom and the old violet at the top. 

“Yennefer,” he said faintly. 

“You haven’t solved any of my problems really,” she said, “but thank you for the orgasm, I think that’s helped me find my inclination to fuck again.”

“Anytime,” he said fuzzily. 

She kissed him next to his mouth, and he was too dazed to return it. “You should talk to your sister,” she said. 

He blinked at her. “Half-sister,” he corrected absently.

“She had the same grandfather,” she said.

“I know,” he said, sharper. He’d been younger than her, but had still had to be the one to defend her, when his mother didn’t care to and his father pretended there was nothing wrong. Grandfather hadn’t been the only such hazard, at court. 

And, fuck, somehow Yennefer had seen that. That was why he’d made such a joke of his own flaws, why he’d been so showy; some of it was to get attention, but some of it was to protect his sister, to keep people from noticing her making her escapes. And she’d hated him for it, in the end. 

“I know,” Yennefer said quietly, petting his chest, cradling his jaw in her hand. “I don’t understand how you have so much love in you, and how you can give it out so freely and still have more.”

“Sometimes it comes back to you,” Jaskier said. It was a well-worn line, and he wasn’t sure if he meant it, but she smiled.

“Maybe that’s true,” she said. 

She slipped away and stood up. “The document you want is on your desk,” she said. “It’s just factual. I made sure to write in the introduction a succinct explanation of who I am and how I know you. Don’t worry, it doesn’t say why _specifically_ I’m giving you this account.”

Jaskier sat up. “Really,” he said, and looked over to the tiny cramped desk by the window, where he only wrote poetry and such and did not do research because there wasn’t any space for stacks of books in this little room. Sure enough, there was a neatly folded letter there. 

“Really,” she said, and she was in the impeccable dress again, her face perfect. “Is our bargain satisfied?”

“I can’t read that fast,” Jaskier said, “but if it’s as you said, then yes, I am satisfied.”

She sighed. “You’re an idiot,” she said, “and far too trusting.”

He shrugged. “I have no power and I know it,” he said, with a bittersweet little smile. “You could just have taken all that without my leave anyway, so if you give me anything I’ve come out ahead of where I might have otherwise.”

She looked at him for a long moment, sighed, and then pulled out a ring from apparently the end of her sleeve. “Here,” she said. “I was going to leave you the replica of Geralt’s cock, but your cooperation has earned you this instead.”

It was a silver ring set with a small purple stone. He took it and turned it over between his fingers. It seemed just like an ordinary thing, similar to the sort of thing a woman might give her troubadour lover; he had hawked any number of such tokens over the years. But he had a suspicion this one wasn’t just a ring. He looked up at her.

“If you need me, I’ll know,” she said. “As long as you have that.”

He slid it onto one of the fingers of his right hand. She nodded. He couldn’t imagine why he’d need her, but he had a feeling that if he sold this one she’d be angry. Fine. At least it was small enough that it wouldn’t scratch the neck of his lute. He could always put it on a thong around his neck if he tired of it. He didn’t really want her token. He didn’t know what she’d decided, whether she had any real feelings for Geralt or not. He had no illusions, how he’d fare if she decided she wanted Geralt after all. She was so powerful she could distort anything she passed through, and always had, and always would, and that was that.

“I’m not going to go see Geralt wearing it,” he said. 

“Afraid he’d be jealous?” she asked.

“No, because you’d track me there,” he said. 

She smiled. “I know where he is,” she said. “You didn’t give me that, but you gave me enough clues that I could put it together. He’s at that Witcher fortress. Don’t worry, I’m not going there either, I just wanted to know.” Her face went somber. “You know Nilfgaard is hunting them. They may figure out where you are too. You should be careful, Jaskier.”

He nodded, but said, “There’s not much I can do. It’s not like I can go into hiding.”

“True,” she said. She sighed. “Good luck throwing it in your colleague’s face,” she said. “That kind of motivation, I understand.”

He gave her a sharp grin. “Spite is the very purest form of motivation,” he said. 

She grinned at him, and then vanished with a handwave and some swirling air that blew out the lamp. Suitably dramatic; he was too impressed to really be annoyed as he had to grope around in the dark to find a robe to put on to go get another taper from the lamp down the hallway.

**Author's Note:**

> THE CSA MENTION:  
> Jaskier alludes to having a handsy grandfather who he did not like coming into contact with as a child-- a man who had made inappropriate advances to Yennefer decades earlier and been punished for it-- and the conversation moves on, and later Yennefer alludes to the grandfather and it is implied that Jaskier had to defend his sister from the same attentions. No further details are mentioned but the implication is clear that Jaskier had to deal with unwanted sexual attention, of unspecified degree, as a very young minor, to himself and to his sibling, possibly from more than one source. 
> 
> The first mention is shortly after the sentence "She was going to devour him", about halfway into the story. It is jarring, it is meant to be jarring, it is treated as such.  
> The second is after the sex scene is over, when Yennefer tells him he should talk to his sister. 
> 
> Neither goes into any detail, and Jaskier suffers no flashbacks or anything of that nature, but they're clear allusions. Please take care of yourself. This will probably come up again further on in the series but I will always, _always_ warn.


End file.
